The Magnificent Rogue (27 page)

“You’ve given up nothing,” she said fiercely. “You have your life and your Craighdhu, and this danger you claim I bring is not even real. Go to Ireland, but don’t expect me to give you anything but a smile when you return. Perhaps not even that if you continue to be such an arrogant, stupid coxcomb of a—” She whirled and slammed the door. She marched across the foyer and up the stairs, fighting back the tears that stung her eyes. She should be relieved he was leaving and she’d be spared the battle she had dreaded. By the time he returned, she should know whether or not she was with child and might have even a stronger argument to hold him at bay.

Dear God, she did not want to hold him at bay. She did not want him to go to Ireland, where danger might be lying in wait. She wanted to welcome him to her bed and her heart. She wanted to live in Craighdhu and have his children. She wanted the life she was denied.

“Kate?” Gavin was coming down the stairs toward her.

She quickly wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. “He’s gone.”

“Jock will take care of him,” he said.

“Yes.” She swallowed. She was foolish to cry over something she could not have. She must just enjoy what she was given. She smiled tremulously. “I must go to the stable to see that Caird and Rachel are properly cared for, but then will you keep your promise?”

His eyes glinted with mischief. “To teach you to love the bagpipes?”

She flinched. “Heaven forbid. No, to teach me what I should know of Craighdhu.”

“What do you wish to learn?”

“Everything.” Her smile had a touch of feverish recklessness. “I want to know how to be mistress of this great heap of stone. I want to meet the people. I want to walk the streets and talk to the craftsmen. I want to be
part
of all this.”

“You’ll expend a great deal of effort for a short return. Wouldn’t it be better simply to try to live on the surface for the next year?”

She knew the suggestion was wise, but there was no question of her taking it. These months might be all she would have. “I can’t do that,” she whispered.

He nodded sadly. “I can see that.” He turned to leave. “Give me a short time to refresh myself, and I’ll meet you in the courtyard.”

“Where are you going?” Deirdre asked as she suddenly appeared around the corner of the stairwell.

Gavin grinned. “I’m going to show Kate a bit of the village before dark. As is natural, she has a curiosity regarding her new home.”

“Very natural,” Deirdre said. “But you’re going about it wrong. You must see and learn everything regarding the castle before going to the village.” She frowned. “Gavin really knows nothing of the running of this castle. I shall have to be the one to teach you. By the time Robert returns, you shall be well on the way to
being a proper mistress of Craighdhu.” She turned to Gavin. “Run along now. I must introduce her to Tim MacDougal, Robert’s agent, and then we will tour the castle.” She didn’t wait for Gavin to obey as she beckoned imperiously to Kate. “If we set about immediately, we shall accomplish much before supper. Afterward you will inspect the servants’ quarters and meet with the …” Her words became inaudible as she turned a corner.

“I didn’t want her to show me the castle,” Kate whispered to Gavin. “I wanted you to—”

“No one knows it better,” Gavin said uneasily. “Perhaps she’s right. It’s best you start out on the right foot.”

“But not at a dead run. I’d like to go to the village and meet—”

“Ah, there you are.” Deirdre had returned and was standing at the end of the hall. “We will never accomplish anything if we dally like this.”

Kate instinctively responded to the sternness in the housekeeper’s tone and started down the hall. After all, she did want to see every inch of the castle, she told herself. Her journey to the village could wait for a little while.

“I’ll come to take you to the village tomorrow morning, Kate,” Gavin called after her.

“We shall be much too busy tomorrow,” Deirdre answered for Kate as she started down the hall again. “Perhaps in a week.”

“A week?” Kate shook her head. “Tomorrow, Gavin.”

Gavin gave Deirdre’s retreating back a nervous look. “We can try.”

God’s Blood, he didn’t want to leave.

Robert’s hands closed tightly on the wooden rail, his gaze on the stone battlements of the castle as the ship drew away from the shore. Since that moment in
the cell when he had confronted Elizabeth, events seemed to conspire to leave him with this feeling of helplessness and frustration. Even as a boy in Santanella, he had never been thrown into such emotional turmoil.

“I could have gone alone,” Jock said quietly.

Robert unclenched his hands from the rail and turned to look at him. “No, you’re right. It’s best I go.”

“I’m glad you agree,” he said. “If you hadn’t, I’d have been tempted to knock some sense into you. She has a fine, lovely look about her, but Craighdhu is more important than fornication.”

“You don’t have to tell me that.”

“She seemed a quiet enough lass when I met her at the dock.” Jock’s lips quirked with amusement. “However, I understand she was less than docile when she bade you good-bye.”

Robert should have known Jock would learn about Kate’s outburst. Everyone at the castle still gave Jock unlimited loyalty, and nothing happened on Craighdhu without his hearing about it. “Quiet is not how I would describe Kate.”

“Good. We had too much silence when your mother was here.” Jock glanced back at the castle. “Why did you wed her? Did she have something Craighdhu needed?”

How well Jock knew him. “No.”

“Then why?”

“I’ll tell you at some later time.” He smiled ruefully. “At the moment I have no intention of giving you cause to tell me what a fool I am.”

Jock’s eyes widened in surprise. “You care about the girl?”

“I did not say that,” Robert said quickly.

“You do not have to.” Jock’s words came as blunt and sharp as hammer blows. “You stare at her as if you would like to devour her, but I thought it only lust. It seems I was—”

“It is lust,” Robert interrupted.

“Then your problem is easily solved. You can slake it with one of those comely lasses you found so willing the last time you visited Ireland.”

He did not want to bed one of Jock’s Irish lasses, comely or not. He wanted Kate, dammit.

Jock shook his head, his eyes narrowed on Robert’s face, reading every change of expression. “No? Then it may be worse than I thought. I remember the day your father brought your mother to Craighdhu. He had the same besotted, puppy-dog look you do now.”

“I’m not besotted. Leave it, Jock.” He turned away. “I’ll talk no more of this. Tell me which merchants we will have the most trouble convincing.”

“Very well, we’ll not talk of it.” Jock paused and then said softly, “But I should give you warning. I’ll not fail again.”

“Fail?” Robert smiled. “You never fail at anything, Jock.”

“I failed once. When I let them take you to Spain. After your father died, my duty was to you. I should have kept you here.”

The words came as a shock. Jock had never spoken of that night since he had returned to Craighdhu. “I’ve never blamed you. She was my mother and Don Diego my uncle. There was nothing you could do.”

“I could have stopped her.” Jock shifted to meet his glance with glacier coldness. “As I would stop her now. With a dagger in her heart.”

“A woman?”

“A woman or a man, it makes no difference.” Jock smiled mockingly. “No, a woman is worse. You think they are no threat with their beauty and softness and let them curl close to your breast, under your armor.” He shrugged. “You have no defense when they sting you.”

“Kate has no intention of stinging me.”

“That is good. For I’ll not let another woman hurt either Craighdhu or you again.” Before Robert could reply,
Jock changed the subject and answered Robert’s question regarding the situation in Ireland. “Shaughnessy is the most frightened. He sent word that he would no longer supply us with goods. Reardon is uneasy, but more prone to fight Malcolm than surrender. Kenneth O’Toole is wavering in our direction, but he’ll need …”

“
C
ome quick, we must
leave at once.” Kate grabbed Gavin’s arm. “Deirdre’s in the scullery inspecting the pots and pans. If we hurry, we can—”

“I thought perhaps you’d locked her in the stable. You seemed a trifle annoyed when she wouldn’t let you leave yesterday morning.”

“It’s been three days, and I’ve seen nothing but stone walls and stables and sculleries and—” She cast an anxious glance over her shoulder. “Come on!”

Gavin started to chuckle as he allowed himself to be propelled toward the door. “What if she catches us? Will we be set to scouring the pots?”

“Worse. She’ll find something else it’s my duty to do. I spent the entire afternoon yesterday going over last month’s accounts. She had poor Timothy MacDougal explain every sum he spent down to the last pence.”

“It all sounds very laudable.”

“Oh, yes, very laudable,” Kate said with exasperation. “Everything she does is laudable. She’s firm but kind to the servants. She’s canny and works harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. She clearly wishes only the best for Robert and Craighdhu and labors from dawn to dark to see that all is well.” She threw open the door
with barely contained violence. “She’s about to drive me
mad
.”

“Robert had a similar response when she first came here.”

“It could not be as bad. She’s like a river that sweeps everything in its path to the sea. She keeps me moving from task to task until I’m too weary to think.”

“You’re not so meek you could not refuse. Why have you let her rule you in this?”

She scowled. “I don’t know. It’s something about her that—She’s always so sure she’s right that she makes me believe I’m foolish to—Stop laughing.”

He tried to keep a straight face. “You said you wanted to know everything about Craighdhu. It’s sometimes dangerous to be granted your wishes. I know exactly what you mean about Deirdre. It’s a terrible bane to be around a person who is always right. Why do you think I have lodgings in the village?”

“I’ll not be so cowardly, but I—”

“Where are you going?”

Gavin and Kate turned to see Deirdre striding toward them across the hall.

“You know where we’re going,” Gavin said lightly. “The same place we’ve been trying to go for the last three days. I thought I’d take her to the village to see—”

“We have no time for that,” Deirdre said. “Today we must go to the stable and—”

“I’ve already seen the stable,” Kate interrupted. She did not care if it was cowardly or not, she had to escape. She took Gavin’s hand and ran down the steps. “Come on, Gavin.”

They hurried across the courtyard like two children fleeing punishment.

Kate cast a glance over her shoulder and saw Deirdre on the top step, a frown wrinkling her smooth forehead. “Do you think she’ll come after us?” she whispered

Gavin shook his head. “She doesn’t get along with the village women. They find her too …”

He hesitated, and Kate supplied him with a word. “Annoying.”

“Well, she did try to tell them how to best run their concerns. Of course, in most cases she was right, but that didn’t make her observations more welcome. They bristle every time they see her coming toward them.”

“It doesn’t surprise me.” Her pace quickened as she started over the drawbridge. “I grew very weary of her telling me what I must and must not do. I wish to learn everything, but not all at once. I’d like to go more slowly and savor. And there must be more ways of doing a task than Deirdre’s way.”

“It’s a very good way, judging by the result.”

“But it’s not
my
way.” She shifted her shoulders as if shrugging off a burden. “I don’t wish to think about her anymore.” They had crossed the moat and were approaching the village, and her pace eagerly quickened.

It was early, and the village only beginning to come alive, and yet there was already much to see. Young apprentices were busily taking down shutters, opening the shops, setting up small stalls, readying wares.

A young woman carrying a huge basket moved through the crowds crying, “Cherry ripe, apples fine!”

As they passed through the streets, Kate was assaulted by other merchants calling their wares. “Fine cobweb lawn, pins, points, and garters!”

“Do you not need a fine cabinet, my lady?”

“Will you not buy Spanish gloves? The finest leather!”

“Hot oat cakes!”

As they passed a bookseller’s shop with the unlikely sign naming it the Brazen Sheep, Kate paused at a trestle stall to look at a heap of volumes. “I’ve never seen so many books,” she said with wonder.

“Didn’t you have a bookseller in your village?” Gavin asked.

She shook her head. “Sebastian thought reading
anything but Scriptures was corrupt and condemned it from the pulpit.”

“Well, if Sebastian didn’t like it, we must certainly buy you one.” He scanned the tides and chose a thick red leather volume. “Ah, here’s one that’s quite satisfactorily corrupt and yet suitable for a lady.” He paid the shopkeeper and handed the book to Kate with a bow. “With every sentence you read, think of Sebastian. It will give you added pleasure.”